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Young Playthings

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    Ian Jane
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  • Young Playthings



    Released by: Klubb Super 8
    Released: 2014.
    Director: Joe Sarno
    Cast: Christina Lindberg, Eva Portnoff, Margareta Hellstrí¶m, Thomas Nervell
    Year: 1971
    Purchase From Diabolik DVD

    The Movie:

    Written and directed by Joe Sarno in 1971, Young Playthings is a great example of just how trippy and weird Sarno's movies could get when he was in the zone. While he'll probably always be better known for his explicit American soap operas like Abigail Leslie is back in town or his black and white NYC based softcore sleaze like Sin In The Suburbs, when Sarno wanted to get artsy and weird he really did get artsy and weird.

    The movie tells the tale of Gunilla (Christina Lindberg), a fine looking Swedish woman who gets a lot friendlier than you might think with Nora (Eva Portnoff) and Janne (Thomas Nervell). Together they lead a comfortable life of leisure, zipping around in their boat or enjoying some quality time doing some nude sunbathing. Gunilla and Nora spend a lot of time talking, having some nice heart to heart conversations about life and love but things get weird after Gunilla moves in with Nora. At first it's just promiscuity, what with Nora coaxing guys into their pad for a little group action. It gets stranger from here though. See, all involved soon meet Brit (Margareta Hellstrí¶m), the woman who lives next door. She seems nice enough at first but as they get to know her they realize things are… weird.

    Is Brit a witch or is she just the nice lady next door, repairing old toys and selling them to collectors as she claims? When it turns out that she's got a collection of tapes that contain recordings of strange chants and incantations, the truth comes out - she uses these to get anyone within earshot all riled up and raring to go! Once they are, she lets them into her bizarre fantasy world where the participants in all manner of sexual deviancy paint their faces and strut about in bizarre costumes. Just how much Nora and Janne know about all of this remains to be seen, but let it suffice to say that Gunilla is in for some very strange times indeed…

    A strange blurring of fantasy and reality and of childlike imagery with adult themes, Young Plaything is definitely one of Sarno's most interesting movies. It's an arthouse film by way of a grindhouse film in that it borders on the surreal but it also delivers plenty of skin. The storyline holds your attention with ease but so too does it leave quite a bit open to interpretation. The performances compliment this nicely. Sometimes all involved look a little detached and at other times, particularly in regards to Lindberg's character, they commit and really get into the melodrama.

    The whole thing is just flat out weird, but you've got to admire the art direction here. Characters are frequently wearing harlequin style makeup as they go about their naked playtime and while their bodies are often naked more often than not the ladies in particular sport strange headdresses and old fashioned hats. Why? Why not! It gets even more absurd when Gunilla and a man in makeup take part in a recreation of what is best described as gladiatorial combat! Brit acts as a ringmaster here, conducting the action in her own strange way and plying the participants with booze presumably in an attempt to keep them under her spell.

    It's all really nicely shot and it makes great use of color. The soundtrack also fits in nicely, giving the strange scenes an even stranger tone by using a lot of slightly off kilter piano music. This heightens the otherworldly atmosphere of the film in a big way, as does the use of antique toys in the last half of the movie. Weird stuff, but completely fascinating and a must for fans of either Sarno or Lindberg.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Young Playthings debuts on DVD in a transfer taken from a few different sources. Most of the transfer comes from a super-16mm work print found in the basement of Joe Sarno's Swedish home but the opening credits and one reel of footage were missing. To make the film complete, the missing footage has been spliced into the transfer from a VHS source. The film sourced footage looks pretty good. There's some print damage evident throughout and the frame bounces around a bit so obviously the elements were in far less than perfect shape but this is watchable enough. Skin tones and colors look decent and there's no evidence of noise reduction nor are there any compression artifacts. The tape sourced bits look… like tape sourced bits. Not much you can do there but it's definitely better to have this material included than to not have it included. The tape source footage makes up roughly a quarter to a third of the feature, so yeah, this is taken from the only real source it could have been. It doesn't look perfect but it's great to even have the movie in this seemingly complete form at all, given that until this disc came out the movie was thought to be more or less lost (save for some crappy VHS bootlegs floating around).

    There was also no sound accompanying those film elements when they were discovered, so the audio is also taken from the aforementioned VHS source. Presented in English language Dolby Digital Mono with optional subtitles available in Swedish, the audio quality isn't going to blow you away but it gets the job done. Dialogue is a bit flat but perfectly audible and there is enough hiss and distortion that you can't help but notice it, but it's serviceable.

    Extras start off with a seven minute interview with the film's late director in which he talks about the years he spent making films in Sweden rather than in his native New York. He then goes into some details about working on Young Playthings in particular. Made in 1997 it's an interesting piece and it gives the presentation some historical context. Maybe more interesting, however, is the inclusion of fifty-seven minutes of outtakes, bloopers, alternate takes and other related unused bits and pieces left over from the production. There's a lot of great stuff included here - not just footage of the lovely Ms. Lindberg doing her thing but also some more graphic and explicit bits, some really great footage of the characters in full dress and loads more. It's a veritable treasure trove for the Sarno fan and this stuff is worth the price of the disc alone (it's also never been seen before this release in any form). You can access this stuff by way of a 'play all' option or take it chapter by chapter (as it has been divided into five chunks). Some of it is presented without sound and some of it has the accompanying audio (Is that Sarno directing the cast behind the camera we hear? It sure sounds like it!) but it's still well worth checking out.

    The disc also includes trailers for Anita, Bamse, Sweden Heaven And Hell, Exponerad, Baksmalla and Maid in Sweden as well as a pretty neat still gallery made up of promotional materials and related ephemera.

    As if all of that weren't enough, this release also comes with a bonus DVD that contains a second feature length film in the form of Siv, Anne & Sven, also directed by Joe Sarno in 1971. The story here revolves around a young woman named Anne (Britt Marie Engstroem). She makes a living for herself as the assistant to a photographer named Siv (Liliane Malmquist who looks an awful lot like Brigitte Lahaie, not that anyone will likely complain about that!), a woman a few years her elder who specializes in taking racy pictures of naked ladies. There is one exception to this, however, and that exception is Sven (Bosse Carlsson). He's a hunky make model that Siv has a thing for but when he takes an interest in her assistant, things get complicated. How? Well, Siv figures if Sven is going to make some moves on her assistant that maybe she can get there first. As such, we wind up with a competition of sorts between photographer and model, both intent on outdoing one another to win Anne over mind, body and soul.

    Sarno's interest this time around seems almost (but not quite) entirely focused on ladies loving ladies, so if you're into lesbian softcore you're probably going to wind up enjoying this one quite a bit. The sex scenes are not only plentiful but quite steamy to and always very nicely shot. Great cinematography and art direction, fantastic use of shadow and lighting and a very attractive cast of actresses make this one easy on the eyes. Like a lot of Sarno's stories it gets very melodramatic in spots but that's okay, because it's never dull. The movie also features some pretty interesting music, including a song (credited to Thorsell-Rohde-Dahlberg with vocals by Goran and Janne!) where the vocalist wails on about how 'you're no good… you're no good for me… at allllllll!' which is entirely appropriate in the context of the story! The performances, all dubbed into English after the fact by the looks of things, are pretty decent it's the visuals that'll sell you on this one more than the acting. Not Sarno's best from his Swedish years, not by a long shot, but still worth seeing for anyone with even the slightest interest in his filmography or early seventies European softcore.

    The movie is presented in 1.33.1 fullframe taken from a pretty tattered looking print that was in turn slapped onto a tape, but again, this one is rare and it is again likely a case of Klubb Super 8 doing the best with what they had to work with. The audio is in English in Dolby Digital Mono format with optional subtitles offered in Swedish. Audio quality mirrors that found on Young Playthings - it's a little rough in spots but nothing you can't handle! No extras on this second disc outside of animated menus and a still gallery of admittedly really cool black and white behind the scenes shots with a few lobby cards and press book shots thrown in for good measure (set to that awesome 'You're No Good' song again!).

    The Final Word:

    Young Playthings is Joe Sarno a the top of his game, a wild mix of artistic intentions skewered through the eye of a man not above making films that were as sexy as they were interesting. It's a trip to be sure, and the fact that it happens to feature a very nubile Christina Lindberg in a prominent role doesn't hurt things either. As to the presentation, Klubb Super 8's presentation of Young Playthings is a case of doing the best job possible with the elements available, while the extras, highlighted by the inclusion of a ton of unseen footage and a complete second feature, really round things out in a big way. This one is pretty much essential.





































































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